Forms need to be easy

People hate completing forms! The trouble with most forms on e-commerce sites is that they are designed to make things easy for the company and not for the customer. Forms often ask for information that seems totally irrelevant to the purchase. This can cause annoyance within the customer, as some people don’t like giving out extra and often unnecessary information about themselves. It creates frustration and increases the likelihood that they will leave and not come back.

When designing forms, especially in the checkout process, keeping things to an absolute minimum helps to keep sales at a maximum. The less time it takes the customer to fill out the better. If you want additional information for marketing purposes, or to encourage the customer to create an account for future purposes, do it after the transaction has been completed. If you put it all at the start, it simply gets in the way of what the customer is there to do and increases cart abandonment.

An information heavy form can be the critical point where prospects decide whether to continue with the purchase or to give up. Easy to complete forms which only ask for relevant details will increase conversion rates and encourage positive word of mouth.